The one question I still have
I’ve now contacted 70 consulting partners and received one reply.
So I’m asking here instead.
If I asked you right now who your most important professional relationship is that you haven’t spoken to in over a month — would you know the answer immediately?
If you’re a consulting partner, an M&A advisor, or anyone who manages a large professional network — I’d genuinely like to hear your answer. Reply here or email me directly at tjong.willem@gmail.com.
I’m 15 and I’m trying to build the right thing. Every honest answer helps.
substack.com/home/post/p-190650670
— Willem
I sent him a free help and invitation if he's interested to join and wants to learn new things.
If someone can share more ideas write it here I will forward it to him.
Peace.
At 15 you should go to school, hang out with girls and play outdoors. Live the real life of a teenager. Not reach out to "consulting partners" and "M&A advisors" 🙄
Too much social media for this kid. Where are his parents?
JohnnyDoe said:At 15 you should go to school, hang out with girls and play outdoors. Live the real life of a teenager. Not reach out to "consulting partners" and "M&A advisors" 🙄
Too much social media for this kid. Where are his parents?
Right but he will be a great business man in the future.
JohnnyDoe said:How you know? Right now he's just filling his mouth with words he doesn't understand. Not a good start.
I started playing with tech when I was 13. Maybe I can feel him.
Why he is doing that, maybe his parents are entrepreneurs or maybe for financial reasons, or he is influenced by X Twitter build in public this is the current trend etc.. I saw an example in shark tank Australia.
For sure he is going to fail and learn but he will succeed in his journey.
I wish he will follow good passion.
I could think of worse things for a 15 year old to be up to.
Paratore said:I could think of worse things for a 15 year old to be up to.
Sure, there are worse things a 15 year old could be doing than sending awkward emails to consultants. That is true. There are also far better things than trying to cosplay as a 38 year old LinkedIn zombie before you even know how the real world works.
Ambition is good. Premature corporatization is not. At 15, the priority should be building a brain, a body, social skills, judgment, and some culture. Otherwise you end up fluent in big words and empty underneath, which sadly is already enough for 80% of the consulting industry.
We should mock the environment that makes a teenager think “networking with M&A advisors” is a normal developmental milestone. Let him build things, read serious books, learn to speak properly, make mistakes, get rejected, and maybe even have a life. That will help him more than collecting one polite reply from 70 human autoresponders.
JohnnyDoe said:Sure, there are worse things a 15 year old could be doing than sending awkward emails to consultants. That is true. There are also far better things than trying to cosplay as a 38 year old LinkedIn zombie before you even know how the real world works.
Ambition is good. Premature corporatization is not. At 15, the priority should be building a brain, a body, social skills, judgment, and some culture. Otherwise you end up fluent in big words and empty underneath, which sadly is already enough for 80% of the consulting industry.
We should mock the environment that makes a teenager think “networking with M&A advisors” is a normal developmental milestone. Let him build things, read serious books, learn to speak properly, make mistakes, get rejected, and maybe even have a life. That will help him more than collecting one polite reply from 70 human autoresponders.
It’s a phase they go through (we all did too). It’s the same as the white rapper thing from years ago, being a “content creator” a few years ago, or back in 2015 when they were all waving swastikas. I guarantee this one watches Andrew Tate and wants to be a “hustler”. This fad, at least, is just embarrassing, not actively harmful. It’s something to do with trying to find an identity. He’ll look back on this in a couple of years and cringe. Maybe he’ll actually learn some real business or financial skills in the process.
Paratore said:It’s a phase they go through (we all did too). It’s the same as the white rapper thing from years ago, being a “content creator” a few years ago, or back in 2015 when they were all waving swastikas. I guarantee this one watches Andrew Tate and wants to be a “hustler”. This fad, at least, is just embarrassing, not actively harmful. It’s something to do with trying to find an identity. He’ll look back on this in a couple of years and cringe. Maybe he’ll actually learn some real business or financial skills in the process.
50 hours of community service and confiscation of his LinkedIn account. You don’t learn business and financial skills at 15, you learn how to kiss a girl.
Paratore said:It’s a phase they go through (we all did too). It’s the same as the white rapper thing from years ago, being a “content creator” a few years ago, or back in 2015 when they were all waving swastikas. I guarantee this one watches Andrew Tate and wants to be a “hustler”. This fad, at least, is just embarrassing, not actively harmful. It’s something to do with trying to find an identity. He’ll look back on this in a couple of years and cringe. Maybe he’ll actually learn some real business or financial skills in the process.
“Poor kid let him do his things” is what shapes degens. His parents deserve physical punishment.
If he’s watching and admiring Andrew Tate, it means his brain is being shaped by Andrew Tate. Nothing can be farther from “intelligent”.
JohnnyDoe said:Sure, there are worse things a 15 year old could be doing than sending awkward emails to consultants. That is true. There are also far better things than trying to cosplay as a 38 year old LinkedIn zombie before you even know how the real world works.
Ambition is good. Premature corporatization is not. At 15, the priority should be building a brain, a body, social skills, judgment, and some culture. Otherwise you end up fluent in big words and empty underneath, which sadly is already enough for 80% of the consulting industry.
We should mock the environment that makes a teenager think “networking with M&A advisors” is a normal developmental milestone. Let him build things, read serious books, learn to speak properly, make mistakes, get rejected, and maybe even have a life. That will help him more than collecting one polite reply from 70 human autoresponders.
I agree with the point here but not the complete generalization))
I set up my first BVI Ltd (was better then than it is now - I would not touch UK islands with a 10 foot pole nowadays - they are even more flawed and bureaucratic than their mainland) at 15 and I think I am in a nice position now. Working with corporate structures and studying accounting at a young age was surely an advantage. I crossed 7-figures in my teens, to some extent more profitable than a few recent years.
On the other hand, sending random emails to consultants is not a way you will make money. Nor LinkedIn in general. LinkedIn is the Bluesky of the corporate world and full of people outsourcing their intelligence but not even to smart models; to GPT-4o at best.
I would say that age has a correlation with maturity, but age is not the causation (or defining at all for that matter) of success/capability.
No doubt, there are some rare teenagers who manage to earn good money. Perhaps more today than in the past, thanks to the internet, crypto and AI. However, the ability to make money at 15 does not necessarily mean someone is successful, prepared for real-life challenges or capable of maintaining and growing wealth over time. It simply shows that, under certain circumstances, that person was able to earn a specific amount of money.
Of course, it’s better than spending time on drugs or getting drunk every day, but one does not automatically exclude the other. Moreover, suddenly having a relatively large amount of money at a very young age often leads to a poor understanding of the true value of money. Yet money has one particular characteristics: it does not last forever and has a tendency to end. Without proper preparation and gradual personal growth, this can later lead to more serious difficulties.
Everything has its price, and there is a proper time for everything.
Love the kid’s ambition and hustle, but imo youngsters these days are brainwashed by social media course seller gurus with the whole “build your own business and become rich” narrative without having actual education, experience, or networking. It’s always the typical “Nobody is coming to save you” or “Join my course and learn the skills to become rich,” while in reality, the kids are the ones becoming the income source for those selling the courses like I said in one of my past threads. What a kid at that age should really be doing is being in high school, studying, and having a normal life. We don’t know the financial situation of his family, and that could be a reason why he is doing this, but it would probably be better for him to get part time job and gain experience from different mentors, preparing his self for college .
BudKnows said:Love the kid’s ambition
Ambition to be like Andrew Tate? To make a ton of money? For doing what?
A 15yo doesn’t need money nor power: he has youth. He has food and shelter. He has parents. He can have all the girls he wants. He has the whole world to discover. How can a 15yo waste his precious time by sending messages to old, boring corporate pigs?
In 90 years, the memory of that beautiful girl he loved on a grass field may be the thing that brings the last smile to his face. Or he may die regretting that he wasted his best years chasing an empty dream.
Maybe he wants to be like this kid: 11 Year-old kid who has been a Berkshire Hathaway Class A shareholder for 6 years, so since he was 5 years old.
But he's 10 years TOO late already 🤣:ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:
jafo said:But he's 10 years TOO late already 🤣:ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:
How humiliating for him 🤣
True power moves in silence.
